by Ellen Wood
“Did the late lord die in Italy?” questioned Mr. Ravensworth.
“You shall hear, sir. He grew very ill, I say, and we thought he would be sure to move homewards, but he still stayed on. ‘Archibald likes Florence,’ he would say, ‘and it’s all the same to me where I am.’ ‘Young Level stops for the beaux yeux of the Tuscan women,’ the world said — but you know, sir, the world always was censorious; and young men will be young men. However, we were at last on the move; everything was packed and prepared for leaving, when there arrived an ill-favoured young woman, with some papers and a little child, two years old. Its face frightened me when I saw it. It was, as a child, what it is now as a growing man; and you have seen it today,” she added in a whisper. “‘What is the matter with him?’ I asked, for I could speak a little Italian. ‘He’s a born natural, as yet,’ she answered, ‘but the doctors think he may outgrow it in part.’ ‘But who is he? what does he do here?’ I said. ‘He’s the son of Mr. Level,’ she replied, ‘and I have brought him to the family, for his mother, who was my sister, is also dead.’ ‘He the son of Mr. Level!’ I uttered, knowing she must speak of Mr. Francis. ‘Well, you need not bring him here: we English do not recognise chance children.’ ‘They were married three years ago,’ she coolly answered, ‘and I have brought the papers to prove it. Mr. Level was a gentleman and my sister not much above a peasant; but she was beautiful and good, and he married her, and this is their child. She has been dying by inches since her husband died; she is now dead, and I am come here to give up the child to his father’s people.”
“Was it true?” interrupted Mr. Strange.
“My lord thought so, sir, and took kindly to the child. He was brought home here, and the East Wing was made his nursery — —”
“Then that — that — poor wretch down there is the true Lord Level!” interrupted Mr. Ravensworth.
“One day, when my lord was studying the documents the woman had left,” resumed Mrs. Edwards, passing by the remark with a glance, “something curious struck him in the certificate of marriage; he thought it was forged. He showed it to Mr. Archibald, and they decided to go back to Italy, leaving the child here. All the inquiries they made there tended to prove that, though the child was indeed Mr. Francis Level’s, there had been no marriage, or semblance of one. All the same, said my lord, the poor child shall be kindly reared and treated and provided for: and Mr. Archibald solemnly promised his father it should be so. My lord died at Florence, and Mr. Archibald came back Lord Level.”
“And he never forgot his promise to his father,” interposed the steward, “but has treated the child almost as though he were a true son, consistent with his imbecile state. That East Wing has been his happy home, as Mr. Hill can testify: he has toys to amuse him, the garden to dig in, which is his favourite pastime; and Snow draws him about the paths in his hand-carriage on fine days. It is a sad misfortune, for him and for the family; but my lord has done his best.”
“It would have been a greater for my lord had the marriage been a legal one,” remarked Mr. Ravensworth.
“I don’t know that,” sharply spoke up the doctor. “As an idiot I believe he could not inherit. However, the marriage was not a legal one, and my lord is my lord. The mother is not dead; that was a fabrication also; but she is ill, helpless, and is pining for her son; so now he is to be taken to her; my lord, in his generosity, securing him an ample income. It was not the mother who perpetrated the fraud, but the avaricious eldest sister. This sister, the one you have just seen, is the youngest; she is good and honourable, and has done her best to unravel the plot.”
That was all the explanation given to Mr. Ravensworth. But the doctor put his arm within that of Charles Strange, and took him into the presence of Lord Level.
“Well,” said his lordship, who was then sitting up in bed, and held out his hand, “have you been hearing all about the mysteries, Charles?”
“Yes,” smiled Mr. Strange. “I felt sure that whatever the mystery might be, it was one you could safely explain away if you chose.”
“Ay: though Blanche did take up the other view and want to cut my head off.”
“She was your own wife, your loving wife, I am certain: why not have told her?”
“Because I wanted to be quite sure of certain things first,” replied Lord Level. “Listen, Charles: you have my tale to hear yet. Sit down. Sit down, Hill. How am I to talk while you stand?” he asked, laughing.
“When we were in Paris after our marriage a year ago, I received two shocks on one and the same morning,” began Lord Level. “The one told me of the trouble Tom Heriot had fallen into; the other, contained in a letter from Pisa, informed me that there had been a marriage after all between my brother and that girl, Bianca Sparlati. If so, of course, that imbecile lad stood between me and the title and estate; though I don’t think he could legally inherit. But I did not believe the information. I felt sure that it was another invented artifice of Annetta, the wretched eldest sister, who is a grasping intriguante. I started at once for Pisa, where they live, to make inquiries in person: travelling by all sorts of routes, unfrequented by the English, that my wife might not hear of her brother’s disgrace. At Pisa I found difficulties: statements met me that seemed to prove there had been a marriage, and I did not see my way to disprove them. Nina, a brave, honest girl, confessed to me that she doubted them, and I begged of her, for truth and right’s sake, to help me as far as she could. I cannot enter into details now, Strange; I am not strong enough for it; enough to say that ever since, nearly a whole year, have I been trying to ferret out the truth: and I only got at it a week ago.”
“And there was no marriage?”
“Tell him, Hill,” said Lord Level, laughing.
“Well, a sort of ceremony did pass between Francis Level and that young woman, but both of them knew at the time it was not legal, or one that could ever stand good,” said the doctor. “Now the real facts have come to light. It seems that Bianca had been married when very young to a sailor named Dromio; within a month of the wedding he sailed away again and did not return. She thought him dead, took up her own name again and went home to her family; and later became acquainted with Francis Level. Now, the sailor has turned up again, alive and well — —”
“The first husband!” exclaimed Charles Strange.
“If you like to call him so,” said Mr. Hill; “there was never a second. Well, the sailor has come to the fore again; and honest-hearted Nina travelled here from Pisa with the news, and we sent for his lordship to come down and hear it. He was also wanted for another matter. The boy had had a sort of fit, and I feared he would die. My lord heard what Nina had to tell him when he arrived; he did not return at once to London, for Arnie was still in danger, and he waited to see the issue. Very shortly he was taken ill himself, and could not get away. It was good news, though, about that resuscitated sailor!” laughed the doctor, after a pause. “All’s well that ends well, and my Lord Level is his own man again.”
Charles Strange sought an interview with his sister — as he often called her — and imparted to her these particulars. He then left at once for London with Mr. Ravensworth. Their mission at Marshdale was over.
* * * * *
Lord Level, up and dressed, lay on a sofa in his bedroom in the afternoon. Blanche sat on a footstool beside him. Her face was hidden upon her husband’s knee and she was crying bitter tears.
“Shall you ever forgive me, Archibald?”
He was smiling quietly. “Some husbands might say no.”
“You don’t know how miserable I have been.”
“Don’t I! But how came you to fall into such notions at first, Blanche? To suspect me of ill at all?”
“It was that Mrs. Page Reid who was with us at Pisa. She said all sorts of things.”
“Ah!”
“Won’t you forgive me, Archibald?”
“Yes, upon condition that you trust me fully in future. Will you, love?” he softly whispered.
Sh
e could not speak for emotion.
“And the next time you have a private grievance against me, Blanche, tell it out plainly,” he said, as he held her to him and gave her kiss for kiss.
“My darling, yes. But I shall never have another.”
CHAPTER XIII.
CONCLUSION.
I, Charles Strange, took up this story at its commencement, and I take it up now at its close.
* * * * *
It was a lovely day at the end of summer, in the year following the events recorded in the last chapter, and we were again at Marshdale House.
The two individuals who had chiefly marred the peace of one or another of us in the past were both gone where disturbance is not. Poor Tom Heriot was mouldering in his grave near to that in which his father and mother lay, not having been discovered by the police or molested in any way; and the afflicted Italian lad had died soon after he was taken to his native land. Mr. Hill had warned Nina Sparlati that, in all probability, he would not live long. Mrs. Brightman, I may as well say it here, had recovered permanently; recovered in all ways, as we hoped and believed. The long restraint laid upon her by her illness had effected the cure that nothing else might have been able to effect, and re-established the good habits she had lost. But Miss Brightman was dead; she had not lived to come home from Madeira, and the whole of her fortune was left to Annabel. “So you can live where you please now and go in for grandeur,” Arthur Lake said to me and my wife. “All in good time,” laughed Annabel; “I am not yet tired of Essex Street.”
And now we had come down in the sunny August weather when the courts were up, to stay at Marshdale.
You might be slow to recognise it, though. Recalling the picture of Marshdale House as it was, and looking at it now, many would have said it could not be the same.
The dreary old structure had been converted into a light and beautiful mansion. The whitened windows with their iron bars were no more. The disfiguring, unnaturally-high walls were gone, and the tangled shrubs and weeds, the overgrowth of trees that had made the surrounding land a wilderness, were now turned into lovely pleasure-grounds. The gloomy days had given place to sunny ones, said Lord Level, and the gloomy old structure, with its gloomy secrets, should be remembered no more.
Marshdale was now their chief home, his and his wife’s, with their establishment of servants. Mr. Drewitt and Mrs. Edwards had moved into a pretty dwelling hard by; but they were welcomed whenever they liked to go to the house, and were treated as friends. The steward kept the accounts still, and Mrs. Edwards was appealed to by Blanche in all domestic difficulties. She rarely appeared before her lady but in her quaint gala attire.
We were taking tea out of doors at the back of the renovated East Wing. The air bore that Sabbath stillness which Sunday seems to bring: distant bells, ringing the congregation out of church, fell melodiously on the ear. We had been idle this afternoon and stayed at home, but all had attended service in the morning. Mr. Hill had called in and was sitting with us. Annabel presided at the rustic tea-table; Blanche was a great deal too much occupied with her baby-boy, whom she had chosen to have brought out: a lively young gentleman in a blue sash, whose face greatly resembled his father’s. Next to Lord Level sat my uncle, who had come down for a week’s rest. He was no longer Serjeant Stillingfar; but Sir Charles, and one of her Majesty’s judges.
“Won’t you have some tea, my dear?” he said to Blanche, who was parading the baby.
By the way, they had named him Charles. Charles Archibald; to be called by the former name: Lord Level protested he would not have people saying Young Archie and Old Archie.
“Yes, Blanche,” said he, taking up the suggestion of the judge. “Do let that child go indoors: one might think he was a new toy. Here, I’ll take him.”
“Archibald need not talk,” laughed Blanche, looking after her husband, who had taken the child from her and was tossing it as he went indoors. “He is just as fond of having the baby as I am. Neither need you laugh, Mr. Charles,” turning upon me; “your turn will come soon, you know.”
Leaving the child in its nursery in the East Wing, Lord Level came back to his place; and we sat on until evening approached. A peaceful evening, promising a glorious sunset. An hour after midday, when we had just got safely in from church, there had been a storm of thunder and lightning, and it had cleared the sultry air. The blue sky above, flecked with gold, was of a lovely rose colour towards the west.
“The day has been a type of life: or of what life ought to be,” suddenly remarked Mr. Hill. “Storm and cloud succeeded by peace and sunshine.”
“The end is not always peaceful,” said Lord Level.
“It mostly is when we have worked on for it patiently,” said the judge. “My friends, you may take the word of an old man for it — that a life of storm and trouble, through which we have struggled manfully to do our duty under God, ever bearing on in reliance upon Him, must of necessity end in peace. Perhaps not always perfect and entire peace in this world; but assuredly in that which is to come.”
THE END
The Shorter Fiction
The King’s School, Worcester Cathedral. As was usual for Victorian girls, Wood was educated at home – but her close observation of the pupils at the King’s School (including her own brothers) led to what many critics considered a particularly accurate portrait of schoolboys in her early novels.
THE ELCHESTER COLLEGE BOYS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. HARE AND HOUNDS.
CHAPTER II. THE PRECENTOR’S SCHOLARSHIP.
CHAPTER III. THE LOCKING UP IN THE CRYPT.
CHAPTER IV. THE THEFT IN THE CLOISTER-PORTER’S LODGE.
CHAPTER V. THE AWARDING OF THE PRIZE.
The original frontispiece
THE ELCHESTER COLLEGE BOYS
CHAPTER I. HARE AND HOUNDS.
IT was Saturday afternoon, and the bell of Elchester Cathedral was tolling for service. A fine city is Elchester, with its many churches and its time-honoured and beautiful cathedral; its locality being in the heart of England. Winding out of the college school-room, two and two, came the thirty king’s scholars in their white surplices; for they had to attend service on Saturday afternoons. An aggravating shame, thought the boys, for it was their half holiday. The other ten king’s scholars (making up the forty, the number for which the school was founded by royal charter) were already in the cathedral: they were the choristers, and their surplices were kept in the vestry of the cathedral, not in the school-room. You should have seen that school-room, you who are only familiar with the rooms of private schools; an enormous room, running along one entire side of the cloisters. The forty boys and the clergymen, their masters, looked lost in it. It had high windows; so high that nothing could be seen but the sky, the tops of the great elm trees, and the old rooks that flew restlessly about, caw-cawing from branch to branch.
The king’s scholars entered the cathedral by the door opening from the cloisters, proceeded along the body, crossed the nave, and took their seats in the choir on their appropriate benches, — the senior boy, whose name was Durham, bearing the large keys of the school The choristers were not yet in their places; they waited to come in with the dean and chapter. The under master of the college school, the Rev. Oswald Bourn, a minor canon of the cathedral, sat in his stall, his book open before him: it was his turn for chanting. Opposite to him sat the head master of the school, the Rev. Peter Harkaway, minor canon and sacrist; therefore the king’s scholars had to be upon their good behaviour. There was nothing Mr. Harkaway punished more severely than ill behaviour in college. The school had now just met after the summer holidays.
The clock chimed the quarter-past three, the bell ceased, and the organist struck the keys of the organ. Another minute and the procession of the clergy came in. Six old bedesmen in their black gowns, and two vergers bearing their silver maces, headed it. The bishop followed close upon them, and passed on to his throne, the dean and three prebendaries ascended to their stalls, and the ch
oristers ascended to theirs. The choir doors were closed, the cloth curtains drawn, and the service began. With the exception of the clergy and the officials of the cathedral, there were not half-a-dozen people at service. Somewhat anxiously did the king’s scholars listen for the giving out of the anthem, lest it should be a long one, for they wanted the service over quickly. Full of congratulation were they that “Bourn,” as they called him, with their accustomed irreverence, was in the chanting desk, for he was a quick chanter. They had their wish; the anthem was short as need be, and by a few minutes past four, they were out of the cathedral. Demurely enough walked they till they reached the steps leading to the school-room, and then up they dashed, pell-mell, all order over, tore off their surplices, and in a trice were back in the cloisters. A grand scheme was agate for that afternoon; no less than a set-to at “hare and hounds.” Not above twice or thrice in the year was it entered upon: it was a fatiguing game, even for school-boys, and grief sometimes was the result, in the shape of bruises, damaged clothes, and scratched faces; for they were not particular what hedges or ditches they pushed through. This was a day which had been counted on for some time past; it was summer weather, the days were long, and the boys had full five hours before them for scampering over the country.
They stood in the cloisters, waiting for the choristers. Fine old cloisters were they, forming a quadrangle, the college grave-yard being in the centre: they had two doors of egress, besides the entrances to the, cathedral, the schoolroom, and the chapter-house. The door on the south side led to a large open space at the back of the cathedral, the elm trees in the middle, the deanery and prebendal houses around: it was a favourite play-place of the boys. The door on the west led also to some prebendal residences, and to a narrow alley which led round to the front or north side of the cathedral, where was situated its grand entrance, near also to which was the bishop’s palace.
